Somerville, Mass.-based Mass General Brigham now treats patients needing emergency or urgent care at home.
The health system's patients can request referrals to the Home Hospital Emergency Care program through their primary care providers, who decide if patients are stable enough to be treated at home. If they are, a nurse talks to the provider and schedules a home visit, where a paramedic completes a physical exam joined virtually by an emergency medicine physician.
"There are many patients who are being seen in the ED when some other sort of care might be more appropriate," said John Campbell, operations manager of mobile integrated health for Mass General Brigham Ambulance Services, in a May 2 news release. "With HHEC, we're trying to give them an alternative, to be that middle ground between not seeking care at all and going to the ED when it might be unnecessary."
He added that the home is where patients "are happiest, most comfortable, and heal best."
Mass General Brigham aims to expand the program, which was launched in 2023, to further ease emergency department overcrowding. The health system also has one of the biggest hospital-at-home programs for acute care patients in the country.